Columbus Noir by Andrew Welsh-Huggins

Author:Andrew Welsh-Huggins [Welsh-Huggins, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE DEAD AND THE QUIET

by Laura Bickle

Union Cemetery

There was no going home again.

Not after this.

Sarah tugged the sleeves of her hoodie down over her knuckles and wrapped her arms around her chest. I will not cry, she thought. I will not cry.

The young woman sank down on the concrete steps of the bus stop and stared at the empty road before her. To her right, a train rumbled over a railway bridge. Behind her, the hospital shone softly in fluorescent light and blue glass. Even in darkness, this place still hummed with seething activity . . . not that it helped her in any way.

She blinked back tears and bit the inside of her cheek to focus. How had she gotten here? Pete dropped her off at the Riverside ER five hours ago. He told her not to come home without a bottle of Oxys or something better. The ER was clean, to the point that Sarah could see her reflection in the floor, and she felt nervous. Maybe this was a place for rich folks, and this could work for or against her. Rich people got everything they wanted, right? And if rich people were here, maybe someone would give her what she wanted so she'd leave quickly.

Sarah told the people in brightly colored scrubs that her back hurt. That she'd been in a bad car accident, hit and skip. No, she hadn't reported it to the police because she had no insurance. Yes, it hurt. It hurt from her tailbone all the way up to her skull, a sharp throb whenever she moved. She was in pain, and she needed help.

That last bit wasn't a lie. Not really. Sarah had run out of Oxys yesterday morning. Her body had begun to ache without them, as if the very marrow was roiling inside her bones in search of something to numb it.

The nurses and the ER doc looked at her skeptically. Sarah had played this riff at several other area ERs, with mixed success. Some just wanted her out of the hospital and wrote her a scrip. Others kicked her out immediately, as if they read some secret file on her that caused them to know what she was after. The folks here were thorough, though . . . they sent her for X-rays and a CAT scan. She protested, because she knew she had no hope in hell of paying for any of it. But she went anyway to the sparkling machines, hoping the images would show that her body needed something, pretty much anything. She'd even take some Percs, not as good as Oxys, but she was desperate at this point. Maybe they'd give her that. But the doctor came back and told her that she was fine . . . as if that was good news! No injuries. She was a reasonably healthy woman in her twenties who should get some rest and see the dentist. She should take some ibuprofen when she got home and go see her regular doctor next week.

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